Caché (Hidden) 2005 French Movie

Caché is a clear-cut French “who's doing it?” that was released five-years ago, and, I have heard, is being remade American style. If you've seen “Eyes Wide Shut”, there's really nothing new to see here. A drama queen wife, played by (universal french actress) Juliette Binoche, sleeps around on her husband, and decides to fuck with him. Why? Well, ask anyone who has had a woman ruin their life, and the explanation is never good enough. There just are some really cold and manipulating people out there. Let's not use dime-store psychology to explain about an absent father-figure. There are just some people in this world who want to hurt you. They take great joy in it. There. Simple.

So, she figures, why not spice things up, and record him leaving for work. So she sets up a camera to record him leaving for work, and decides to tell him that she found a video either in the hall or somewhere else when he returns home. (So someone sends a video to your home of your home and you are unsure where you got it?)

As things turn out, rather serendipitously—I might add—she receives a call from his “was-to-be-adopted brother” who is looking to get back in-touch with him. She goes over to his place, tells him what's up and then sets up a camera, unbeknownst to him, in the kitchen. She then sends the tape that lures him to the place she was at only moments ago. She then prods her (clueless)husband there and stealthfully follows—that's her red VW car that keeps popping up. She listens outside the door, then presses the power button on a remote and records the whole thing. (The JVC remote with the BLUE button pretty much screams at the audience to pay attention.) Then there are several red herrings about his past and with his son and his ex-adoptee brother's son.

The point of this post was not the movie itself—per se—but the countless explanations I have read about it. All of which name every character as a possible suspect, except the wife (Juliette Binoche's character named Anne Laurent). Men are easily tricked by women...

People still haven't figured out that Nicole Kidman's character was behind the whole thing in “Eyes Wide Shut”. What do you think she is doing home all day? What do men reallythink a housewife does all day? Most men don't. That's the problem.

So many blogs, like Roger Ebert's, points to the son of the French couple as the source of the anonymous tapes. He dreams up several possibilities that are completely far fetched to happen. Sure it could be him in kahootz with someone else, but that doesn't necessarily mean no one else.

The kicker is, he completely ignores the character of the cheating wife. Some men tend to idealize women. They place women on a pedestal, and believe they are incapable of any ill-will. They also claim they are all for “women's lib” but willfully ignore to attribute undesirable characteristics to women. In other words they dehumanize them, and this also strips away the virtue of other women, because it automatically assigns their qualities as inherent, and removes the notion of “free-will” and choices. (Not saying Roger does any of this! Just talking in generalities. I mentioned his blog earlier because he is one of the few critics, dare I say, brave enough, to tackle this movie and his own original hypothesis he told me in 2006.)

And if an ignorant man comes across a “bad” woman, there must be a justification for such, like her husband was ignoring her and DROVE her to cheat, or she never had a father-figure around. Anything to avoid the reality of the fact that women can be just as fucked up as men. There are plenty of bad women—and bad men—who deserve each other. No one is innocent, and if you have read (or watched) “The Count of Monte Christo” you already know people are punished in life for ignorance—the unforgivable sin.

So let's get back to Juliette Binoche's character. Now, as someone who has played a number of pranks on people in my youth, getting caught teaches you how to pull better pranks than does getting away with them. You learn that if you're the only one to discover things, it's obviously you doing those “things”. If you receive something disturbing in the mail, and don't recall exactly where you got it or where it was when you “discovered” it, people are going to be very unlikely to believe you. The wife also tells the same lie at the end of the film, “some anonymous stranger called” when she lies to the dinner “guests”. The same lie she told her husband at the beginning of the movie when his ex-adoptee brother called.

It was the wife the whole time. In life I had, and still know, people like this. They are manipulated by women—mothers, girlfriends, wives, grandmothers—and always make excuses for not holding the person accountable. We see it everyday. These are probably the same people who are just as blind to Caché.

I do not agree ambiguity makes a good movie. It makes an ambiguous movie at best—and a boring movie 99% of the time. And discussing a movie with other people isn't the hallmark of a good movie either. The same rules hold true for a marriage.

It is a movie of historical analogy, with the main character representing France feeling the guilt of the mistreatment of Algerians, here represented by Majid. Their son recognizes the tragedy of history and rejects the parents. Like the director says it is a history that can apply to most contries. While the mystery of the tapes can be played with, it is a theatrical device.